The first question most people ask about furry fiction is, “What about reptiles? Do they count? They don’t have fur!” But furry fiction isn’t just about having fur — it’s about empathy, most often with animals, but sometimes anthropomorphic literature reaches even further into the unfamiliar and finds ways to make it familiar.

For our first issue, we offer a journey that will take you from the familiar to the very fringe of furry fiction. From a dog experiencing the apocalypse and two fables about cats and boots, we’ll take you to eerie places where humans don’t quite belong, and finally end on a beautiful prose poem that stretches anthropomorphism almost to its limit, exploring the question: can we empathize with empathy itself?

Reminder, we’ll be back again in three months with more stories! If you want to help us explore the Zooscape as one of our writers, we’d love to see your submission. Check out our guidelines and come explore!

Finally, we’d like to dedicate this issue to Fred Patten who passed away a few weeks too early to read it. He was a legend in the furry writing community — a prolific editor, reviewer, and historian. He was furry fiction’s biggest fan. We hope he would have loved the stories in Zooscape. Rest in peace, Fred.